National Academic Quiz Tournaments

National Academic Quiz Tournaments

Type	Limited liability company
Industry	Quiz bowl
Headquarters	Shawnee, Kansas Twin Cities, Minnesota , United States
Key people	R. Robert Hentzel (President) Seth Teitler (Chief Editor)[1]
Services	Question writing, tournament organizing
Website	naqt.com/

National Academic Quiz Tournaments, LLC is a question-writing and quiz bowl tournament-organizing company founded by former players in 1996. It is unique among U.S. quiz organizations for supplying questions and hosting championships at the middle school, high school, and college levels. NAQT operates out of Shawnee, Kansas and Minneapolis–Saint Paul.

The company mostly writes practice questions and questions for high school and middle school invitational tournaments, as well as for some game shows. Its involvement in college quiz bowl is mostly restricted to sectional tournaments and the Intercollegiate Championship Tournament.

At the college level[]

The ICT is divided into divisions, unlike ACF Nationals, so that a clear undergraduate champion is determined (all formats allow graduate students to compete in some form).

Collegiate divisions[]

Division I Overall[]

NAQT's eligibility rules state that any student taking at least three credit hours towards a degree at a university may compete on that university's team, and indeed may not compete independently if such a team exists. If no program exists at their university's campus, they may compete on the team for another campus of the same university, with the provision that they must leave that team should their home campus organize a program.

If any member of the team has an undergraduate degree, the team competes in the Division I competition, and is only eligible for the open championship (i.e. the overall championship).

Division I Undergraduate[]

At Sectional Championship Tournaments (SCTs) and the Intercollegiate Championship Tournament (ICT), teams that do not meet the Division II requirements play together. However, awards are given, including bids to the ICT, for the top undergraduate team. A team is eligible for the undergraduate championship if all members of the team are undergraduate students, and none of them have played in four years of NAQT collegiate competition prior to the current year. The undergraduate championship was first awarded in 1998.^[2]

Division II[]

Also introduced in 1998, Division II is intended to give first- and second-year students an opportunity to compete against other players and teams of the same level of experience. The rules of Division II eligibility are that one must be eligible for DI Undergraduate (i.e. no degree, and less than four years of experience), and in no year prior qualified for or participated in ICT.^[2]

Exceptions to the eligibility rules have been granted to deal with special circumstances in past years; however, as they are controversial when they occur, they do not occur often.

Community colleges[]

Two-year colleges usually compete in separate SCTs each February (it is permitted, but rare, for teams from these schools to compete in DI). Eight teams qualify for the Division II ICT, where they compete alongside other DII teams in a manner analogous to that of DI Undergraduate teams. However, students at two-year colleges are exempt from the DII eligibility restrictions. In fact, they have three years of eligibility at the DII level.^[3]

ICT in the COVID-19 Pandemic[]

On March 11, 2020, NAQT announced that the 2020 ICT would be cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.^[4] The 2021 ICT will be held online for the same reason.^[5]

Winners of NAQT Intercollegiate Championship Tournament ^[6][]

Year	Host / Location	Division I Overall	Division I Undergraduate	Division II Overall	Division II Community College
1997	Penn	Chicago	N/A	N/A	N/A
1998	Vanderbilt	Stanford	Swarthmore	Harvard	N/A
1999	Michigan	Chicago	Carleton	Princeton	N/A
2000	Boston U	Illinois	Princeton	Harvard	N/A
2001	WUSTL	Chicago	Princeton	Pittsburgh	N/A
2002	North Carolina	Michigan	Princeton	Yale	Valencia CC
2003	UCLA and Caltech	Chicago	Harvard	California	Valencia CC
2004	WUSTL	California	Illinois	UCLA	Valencia CC
2005	Tulane	Michigan	VCU	Chicago	Faulkner St CC
2006	Maryland	California	Williams College	Stanford	Broward CC
2007	Minnesota	Chicago	Carleton	Maryland	Valencia CC
2008	WUSTL	Maryland	Harvard	Carleton	Valencia CC
2009	Dallas, Texas	Chicago	Minnesota[Note 1]	Chicago	Northeast Alabama CC
2010	Chicago, Illinois	Chicago[Note 1]	Minnesota	Brown	St. Charles CC
2011	Chicago, Illinois	Minnesota[Note 1]	VCU[Note 1]	Yale	Chipola
2012 [7]	Chicago, Illinois	Virginia	Ohio State[Note 2]	Harvard	Chipola
2013	Chicago, Illinois	Yale	Ohio State	Stanford	Chipola
2014	Chicago, Illinois	Virginia	Yale	Harvard	Valencia CC
2015	Atlanta, Georgia	Virginia	Maryland	Texas	State College-Manatee
2016	Chicago, Illinois	Chicago	California	Chicago	Jefferson
2017	Chicago, Illinois	Michigan	Oklahoma	California	Chipola
2018	Chicago, Illinois	Yale	California	Chicago	Chipola
2019	Chicago, Illinois	Yale	Michigan State	Maryland	De Anza
2020[4]	Cancelled	N/A	N/A	N/A	Valencia CC
2021	Virtual	Columbia	Brown	Vanderbilt	Jefferson

Notes

At the high school level[]

Teams qualify to the High School National Championship Tournament through a variety of methods. Most commonly, a team qualifies by finishing in the top 15% of the field at a tournament that uses NAQT questions. If a school wants to send more than one team to nationals, the school must qualify all said teams at the same time during a single tournament.

The small school award is given to a public school with a non-selective admissions policy and less than 500 students in grades 10 through 12. Up until and including 2013, the small school champion was decided on a playoff between top finishing teams at the High School National Championship Tournament. Since 2014, a separate national championship tournament has been held for small schools.

Since 2018, NAQT has also run the Individual Player National Championship (IPNCT).^[8] The IPNCT format is different from that of other NAQT national championship tournament, with players first competing in "group matches" which 8-10 players where they hear 48 or 72 ICT Division II tossups. After the group matches, top players compete in an elimination tournament whose games are 24-tossup head-to-head match-ups.^[9] Unlike the High School National Championship Tournament and Small School National Championship Tournament, competitors do not need to qualify to the Individual Player National Tournament.^[10]

The 2020 IPNCT^[4] and 2020 HSNCT^[11] were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2021 HSNCT and IPNCT will be held online.^[12]

Winners of NAQT High School National Championship Tournament ^[13][]

Year	Location	Champion	2nd	3rd	Small school
1999	Norman, Oklahoma	Detroit Catholic Central	Walton	Brookwood A	N/A
2000	Atlanta, Georgia	State College A	Maggie Walker A	Eleanor Roosevelt	N/A
2001	Ann Arbor, Michigan	Detroit Catholic Central	Detroit Country Day	State College A	N/A
2002	Austin, Texas	St. John's School	Irmo	Detroit Catholic Central	Kent City
2003	Myrtle Beach, South Carolina	Thomas Jefferson A	Dorman A	St. John's	Cutter–Morning Star
2004	Houston, Texas	Thomas Jefferson A	Maggie Walker	St. John's A	Cutter–Morning Star
2005	Chicago, Illinois	Thomas Jefferson A	Lakeside	State College A	Danville
2006	Chicago, Illinois	Richard Montgomery	State College A	Maggie Walker A	Danville
2007	Chicago, Illinois	Maggie Walker A	State College A	Thomas Jefferson A	Danville
2008	Chicago, Illinois	Thomas Jefferson A	Charter School of Wilmington A	Walt Whitman A	Russell
2009	Chicago, Illinois	Charter School of Wilmington A	Dorman A	State College A	Ottawa Hills
2010	Chicago, Illinois	Maggie Walker	State College A	LASA A	South Range
2011	Atlanta, Georgia	State College A	LASA A	Bellarmine	George Mason
2012	Atlanta, Georgia	Bellarmine A	Detroit Catholic Central A	LASA A	Beachwood
2013	Atlanta, Georgia	LASA A	Ladue A	Loyola	Macomb
2014	Chicago, Illinois	LASA A	St. John's A	LASA B	Hallsville
2015	Chicago, Illinois	Arcadia A	LASA A	Detroit Catholic Central A	Harmony Science North Austin
2016	Dallas, Texas	Hunter A	Thomas Jefferson A	Detroit Catholic Central A	Advanced Math & Science
2017	Atlanta, Georgia	Hunter A	Detroit Catholic Central A	Naperville North	Glasgow and St. Mark's
2018	Atlanta, Georgia	Plano West A	Hunter A	LASA A	Glasgow and Early College at Guilford
2019	Atlanta, Georgia	Beavercreek	University Lab	Chattahoochee A	Glasgow and Miami Valley
2020[11]	Cancelled	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
2021	Virtual	Barrington	University Lab A	Detroit County Day A	Westmont and St. Mark's School of Texas A

Winners of NAQT Individual Player National Championship Tournament, High School Division ^[14][15][]

Year	Location	Champion (School)	2nd	3rd	4th
2018	Chicago, Illinois	Jack Lewis (Battle Ground Academy)	Maximilian Shatan (Bard High School Early College Manhattan)	Tora Husar (Wayzata High School)	Govind Prabhakar (Adlai E. Stevenson High School)
2019	Chicago, Illinois	Ethan Strombeck (Auburn High School)	Hari Parameswaran (Beavercreek High School)	Alexander Pyle (Troy High School)	Matthew Siff (Georgetown Day School)
2020[4]	Cancelled	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
2021	Virtual	Arthur Delot-Vilain (Georgetown Day School)	Amogh Kulkarni (Wayzata High School)	Ned Tagtmeier (St. Mark's School of Texas)	Johnny Miri (St. Dominic Savio Catholic High School)

At the middle school level[]

For the 2010–2011 academic year, NAQT has introduced a program for middle school. A corresponding middle school national championship, the MSNCT, was held in 2011 in Chicago. Similarly to HSNCT, qualifying teams for MSNCT have a variety of methods to qualify, but the most common method is to finish in the top 15% of field of teams that uses NAQT questions. If a school wants to qualify multiple teams, they must all qualify at the same tournament. Any teams that are eligible for MSNCT that qualify for HSNCT have also qualified for MSNCT.

The Individual Player National Championship Tournament has also had a middle school division since 2019.^[10] The format of the middle school division of the IPNCT is the same as that of the high school division, but the middle school division uses tossups written at the same difficulty of NAQT's Invitational Series for playoff rounds.^[9]

In 2019, NAQT started using question packets with a difficulty “similar to those in NAQT’s Regular Invitation Series sets,”^[16] for playoff rounds of MSNCT.

NAQT cancelled the 2020 MSNCT due to the COVID-19 pandemic.^[17] The 2021 MSNCT will be held online.^[18]

Winners of NAQT Middle School National Championship Tournament ^[19][]

Year	Location	Champion	2nd	3rd
2011	Chicago, Illinois	Kealing A	Barrington-Station A	Longfellow
2012	Chicago, Illinois	Kealing A	Longfellow A	Westminster A
2013	Chicago, Illinois	Barrington-Station A	Kealing A	Mesa Verde
2014	Atlanta, Georgia	Harmony Excellence-Houston	St. Mark's	Trickum
2015	Dallas, Texas	Kealing A	T. H. Rogers A	River Trail A
2016	Atlanta, Georgia	Middlesex A	Longfellow A	Challenger-Ardenwood
2017	Dallas, Texas	Aptakisic	Mounds Park	Middlesex A
2018	Chicago, Illinois	Pi-oneers[Note 1]	BASIS Silicon Valley A	Longfellow A
2019	Chicago, Illinois	Hunter A	Churchill A	Hopkins
2020[17]	Cancelled	N/A	N/A	N/A
2021	Virtual	Churchill A	Longfellow A	Burleigh Manor A

Winners of NAQT Individual Players National Championship, Middle School Division ^[20][]

Year	Location	Champion (School)	2nd	3rd	4th
2019	Chicago, Illinois	Arin Parsa (Challenger School, Almaden)	Rohan Ganeshan (Quest Academy)	Pareekshith Krishna (William Hopkins Junior High School)	Elliott Lee (Longfellow Middle School)
2020[4]	Cancelled	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
2021	Virtual	Arin Parsa (Stanford Online High School)	Aatreyo Bhattacharyya (Winston Churchill Middle School)	Pranavkrishna Bharanidharan (California Montessori Project, Orangevale)	Dhruv Veda (Burleigh Manor Middle School)

Notes

Jeopardy![]

Various NAQT employees and former NAQT players have appeared on the game show Jeopardy!^[21] Over 30 NAQT players or employees have participated on the show, including 17 who qualified for the Ultimate Tournament of Champions, and also including two finalists, Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings. Jennings writes questions and edits the literature and mythology categories for NAQT. Due to the success of these players, adults trying out must now declare any affiliation to NAQT or quizbowl on their information sheet.^{[citation needed]}

In 2006, competitors in the High School National Championship Tournament were given the opportunity to audition for the Jeopardy! Teen Tournament and the Jeopardy! College Championship. Ben Schenkel of Moravian Academy (Allentown, Pennsylvania) qualified for the Teen Tournament at this tryout, and finished as the tournament's first runner-up.^[22] Meryl Federman of Livingston High School (Livingston, New Jersey) qualified for the second edition of the teen tournament, called the Jeopardy! Teen Tournament Summer Games, and won.^[23]

Buzzword[]

Buzzword is a virtual single-player competition created as a substitute for regular NAQT competitions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Games usually involve players listening to audio questions read by a narrator. Buzzword has 3 divisions (A,B,C) each for Middle School, High School, College, and Open leagues. Buzzword frequently has special tournaments often dedicated to one subject.^[24]

Some Buzzword tournaments also have special guest narrators. For example, in June 2020, Jeopardy! legend Ken Jennings was invited to narrate the Buzzword film special.^[25]

See also[]

• Quiz bowl
• PACE
• Academic Competition Federation
• National History Bee and Bowl
• College Bowl

References[]

External links[]

• NAQT Official website
• Media guide with FAQs
• Quiz Bowl packet archive
• Quiz Bowl Forums
• Interactive Quiz Bowl question database